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How is that not the question? Do you believe Facebook violated their users privacy rights? Do you believe in accountability? Then the question is why not delete

How is that not the question? Do you believe Facebook violated their users privacy rights? Do you believe in accountability? Then the question is why not delete facebook? If you hold facebook accountable, then you send a message: users DO value privacy, and any platform that abuses the privilege may find themselves with far fewer users and a less profitable product. Don't hold them accountable, and you'll get a sorry note from Zuckerberg, and he'll violate it later when you aren't looking. In fact, this article raises another question: how much does the EFF value privacy? Apparently violators just need to say "I'm sorry" and continue what they were doing, and the EFF will argue on their behalf that the benefits of their service outweigh the cost of your lost privacy.

SllX 9y ago
If you look beyond just Facebook, these are issues that will continue to crop up no matter what platform you use. The EFF also makes the claim that there are people for whom deleting Facebook is not a viable or tenable option, and maybe they're right, maybe the tools for them to drop Facebook altogether just don't exist. In that case, they should still have an expectation of privacy and data portability. Facebook's practices are a societal problem, but theirs aren't the only ones, and services that have the same exact problems are probably being developed right now or will be developed within the next few years. So my takeaway from this, reading the EFF's post is 1. we should be looking beyond hashtag campaigns targeted at one specific corporation and 2. if for whatever reason #DeleteFacebook is not a viable option, then you should still have your privacy protected and 3. the subtext to point two reads to me as: if you can #DeleteFacebook, you should, but we're not in the business of telling you what services to use wink wink nudge nudge.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  If the EFF wants to write an article arguing that privacy violations are widespread, and therefore viable privacy-respecting options aren't available.. then I'm all ears. Here's what the EFF says about Facebook: "Deleting Facebook is not a choice that most of its 2 billion users can feasibly make. ... Without viable general alternatives, Facebook’s massive user base and associated network effects mean that the costs of leaving it may not outweigh the benefits." Imagine that, a service a little over a decade old is now a dependency for life. It's not "feasible" to leave. Apparently privacy violations must be weighed against the size of the user base and network effects. Last I checked, phones still worked. Messaging still worked. All of the solution that existed a decade ago are still there. You CAN leave. I look forward to the EFF proposing a legal solution to privacy such as GDPR in the US. They haven't done that, and in the meantime, there should be consequences for Facebook. The EFF shouldn't be arguing for the lack of consequences for this specific privacy violation, without proposing a solution to the problem across the industry.
  - SllX 9y ago
    I am much more in your court than you think, yet somehow Facebook has become a way to make and break relationships and/or businesses for people who are not us. I'm not going to pretend to know what all the individual edge cases are spread out across 2 billion people preventing some of them from leaving, but I'm not going to dismiss the notion simply because I don't personally have that problem and I generally expect the people I associate with to not have that kind of problem. There absolutely should be consequences for Facebook specifically, I vehemently agree with you! I don't think even the EFF is saying there shouldn't be, just that it is not part of their mission to advocate one way or another on that matter. That said, I think, and I think what the EFF is saying here, is that it is unproductive to contain the conversation solely to Facebook. Facebook is the problem right now, and probably not the only one, and definitely not the last one to be developed with that business model. Whatever services we use, there needs to be a baseline for what we should be able to expect in terms of privacy and data portability, a baseline that favors the users of the platform. Personally, I think #DeleteFacebook does matter, and I think people honestly should, but now is the time to be thinking about the long term. GDPR-like laws are one possibility, and as a society we should be figuring out if we want to go that route, or a different route altogether.
  - watwut 9y ago
    EFF is not saying that people should not leave Facebook. It is saying that currently for most of its 2 billion users, leaving Facebook is too difficult, they wont do that and if they did that they would loose too much. Your argument is phone and messaging which does not replaces Facebook for most of those people. Phone being completely irrelevant. Just because those people are not exactly like you, dont have same needs, same usage patterns and similar social groups around them as you have, does not mean they don't exist. Nor it means that EFF should not use them as an argument.
    - mirko22 9y ago
      So you are arguing that in the information age the only way to communicate for some people is facebook? why can’t phone, sms or email work? on the othe hand, how hard is to tap someones land phone and listen in to their conversations, yet people still used it a lot before so i think expectations of privacy in public space is just a fantasy... If you really cares about privacy you wouls not use facebook, and you would look for encrypted communication channels, most people don’t care however...
- _o_ 9y ago
  There is another perspective regarding "deleting FB is not viable option". When you encounter a case in your real life, when you are unable to stop using "something" even if it clearly hurts you, it is typically called addiction. Maybe it ia time that people revise if it is really not a viable choice. Let me give you my example, I am not a FB user. Never was. Do I have problem finding events? Do I have less real friends? Is my quality of life any worse becoase of that? I have hard time going to all events that interest me, I am forced to prioritise meeting my real friends due to lack of time, I still chat with them using email, sms, phone, messanging. I dont see anything that FB could change here to better, only to worse, by alienating those real life friendships that I am having now (by adding endless noise of social network - I am having over 400 phone numbers in my phone, I don't want to get all the possible news about their life, it is impossible to handle). Social networks don't help you having real friends, for those you need to keep feal life contacts, they help you to loose them, by giving you fake feeling that you have "bytefriends" and dispersing your attention from those you care the most to buch of insignificant acquaintances.
  - watwut 9y ago
    It is cool that your life is so highly social, but mine never was. At times I was extremely socially isolated and Facebook actually did helped a lot. I do have and often had problem finding events, my childhood friends left the town or are busy etc etc. I cant feasibly go to events and prioritizing real life meetings/parties without prioritizing away job, my kids and learning of new stuff. Not everyone is like you. Not everyone has tons of free time when he can move anywhere freely, not everyone makes friends super easily and have large amount of acquaintances wherever he goes. And not everyone has tons of people around who happen to share similar interests or personalities. It was like that during college, but as I grown older it was increasingly less so. And I guess I am not alone, because this forum has highly upvoted "it is hard to make friends or not be lonely" article highly upvoted approximately once a month. To me, Facebook did a lot of service that I could not replace by phone or message.
    - _o_ 9y ago
      But there is still the same problem, for you it is the same as it was before, you have a large amount of contacts, same as my phonebook. With age come lots of work, having a family makes it even worse and it is normal, that at the end you are having only a few of them. This is nothing special and observed over decades. But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, and since you don't have much time (and with aging you are having it even less), instead of focusing to a few people you really like, go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, it makes everyone a "phonebook" entry. At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. Same as here but with a twist - FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. It encorages you not to do anything to find friends, to bond, instead of helping people bond, it is actually preventing them - which is great for FB business, the more time you spend there, the more they earn. And to make it even worse, due to the FB it is becoming even harder to find frinds, as its users (not all) are off the grid for normal, real life, socializing. Actually you made me think about it: all of my real life friends are very modest in using FB or they don't use it at all. To me it looks like that what people like you are considering as a solution (FB) is actually a problem. (I was downvoted, I seriously don't understand why, it would be great if people who are doing it would rather write what is so wrong, I am seriously having issues understanding it)
amarkov 9y ago
It's the EFF's mission to ensure that everyone gets privacy, not just those who are connected enough to know which apps they should delete.
hsljekskfh 9y ago
ok, do you think we should #deletegoogle too? i hate facebook but a lot of companies do this

SllX 9y ago

If you look beyond just Facebook, these are issues that will continue to crop up no matter what platform you use. The EFF also makes the claim that there are people for whom deleting Facebook is not a viable or tenable option, and maybe they're right, maybe the tools for them to drop Facebook altogether just don't exist. In that case, they should still have an expectation of privacy and data portability. Facebook's practices are a societal problem, but theirs aren't the only ones, and services that have the same exact problems are probably being developed right now or will be developed within the next few years. So my takeaway from this, reading the EFF's post is 1. we should be looking beyond hashtag campaigns targeted at one specific corporation and 2. if for whatever reason #DeleteFacebook is not a viable option, then you should still have your privacy protected and 3. the subtext to point two reads to me as: if you can #DeleteFacebook, you should, but we're not in the business of telling you what services to use wink wink nudge nudge.

rgbrenner 9y ago
If the EFF wants to write an article arguing that privacy violations are widespread, and therefore viable privacy-respecting options aren't available.. then I'm all ears. Here's what the EFF says about Facebook: "Deleting Facebook is not a choice that most of its 2 billion users can feasibly make. ... Without viable general alternatives, Facebook’s massive user base and associated network effects mean that the costs of leaving it may not outweigh the benefits." Imagine that, a service a little over a decade old is now a dependency for life. It's not "feasible" to leave. Apparently privacy violations must be weighed against the size of the user base and network effects. Last I checked, phones still worked. Messaging still worked. All of the solution that existed a decade ago are still there. You CAN leave. I look forward to the EFF proposing a legal solution to privacy such as GDPR in the US. They haven't done that, and in the meantime, there should be consequences for Facebook. The EFF shouldn't be arguing for the lack of consequences for this specific privacy violation, without proposing a solution to the problem across the industry.
- SllX 9y ago
  I am much more in your court than you think, yet somehow Facebook has become a way to make and break relationships and/or businesses for people who are not us. I'm not going to pretend to know what all the individual edge cases are spread out across 2 billion people preventing some of them from leaving, but I'm not going to dismiss the notion simply because I don't personally have that problem and I generally expect the people I associate with to not have that kind of problem. There absolutely should be consequences for Facebook specifically, I vehemently agree with you! I don't think even the EFF is saying there shouldn't be, just that it is not part of their mission to advocate one way or another on that matter. That said, I think, and I think what the EFF is saying here, is that it is unproductive to contain the conversation solely to Facebook. Facebook is the problem right now, and probably not the only one, and definitely not the last one to be developed with that business model. Whatever services we use, there needs to be a baseline for what we should be able to expect in terms of privacy and data portability, a baseline that favors the users of the platform. Personally, I think #DeleteFacebook does matter, and I think people honestly should, but now is the time to be thinking about the long term. GDPR-like laws are one possibility, and as a society we should be figuring out if we want to go that route, or a different route altogether.
- watwut 9y ago
  EFF is not saying that people should not leave Facebook. It is saying that currently for most of its 2 billion users, leaving Facebook is too difficult, they wont do that and if they did that they would loose too much. Your argument is phone and messaging which does not replaces Facebook for most of those people. Phone being completely irrelevant. Just because those people are not exactly like you, dont have same needs, same usage patterns and similar social groups around them as you have, does not mean they don't exist. Nor it means that EFF should not use them as an argument.
  - mirko22 9y ago
    So you are arguing that in the information age the only way to communicate for some people is facebook? why can’t phone, sms or email work? on the othe hand, how hard is to tap someones land phone and listen in to their conversations, yet people still used it a lot before so i think expectations of privacy in public space is just a fantasy... If you really cares about privacy you wouls not use facebook, and you would look for encrypted communication channels, most people don’t care however...
_o_ 9y ago
There is another perspective regarding "deleting FB is not viable option". When you encounter a case in your real life, when you are unable to stop using "something" even if it clearly hurts you, it is typically called addiction. Maybe it ia time that people revise if it is really not a viable choice. Let me give you my example, I am not a FB user. Never was. Do I have problem finding events? Do I have less real friends? Is my quality of life any worse becoase of that? I have hard time going to all events that interest me, I am forced to prioritise meeting my real friends due to lack of time, I still chat with them using email, sms, phone, messanging. I dont see anything that FB could change here to better, only to worse, by alienating those real life friendships that I am having now (by adding endless noise of social network - I am having over 400 phone numbers in my phone, I don't want to get all the possible news about their life, it is impossible to handle). Social networks don't help you having real friends, for those you need to keep feal life contacts, they help you to loose them, by giving you fake feeling that you have "bytefriends" and dispersing your attention from those you care the most to buch of insignificant acquaintances.
- watwut 9y ago
  It is cool that your life is so highly social, but mine never was. At times I was extremely socially isolated and Facebook actually did helped a lot. I do have and often had problem finding events, my childhood friends left the town or are busy etc etc. I cant feasibly go to events and prioritizing real life meetings/parties without prioritizing away job, my kids and learning of new stuff. Not everyone is like you. Not everyone has tons of free time when he can move anywhere freely, not everyone makes friends super easily and have large amount of acquaintances wherever he goes. And not everyone has tons of people around who happen to share similar interests or personalities. It was like that during college, but as I grown older it was increasingly less so. And I guess I am not alone, because this forum has highly upvoted "it is hard to make friends or not be lonely" article highly upvoted approximately once a month. To me, Facebook did a lot of service that I could not replace by phone or message.
  - _o_ 9y ago
    But there is still the same problem, for you it is the same as it was before, you have a large amount of contacts, same as my phonebook. With age come lots of work, having a family makes it even worse and it is normal, that at the end you are having only a few of them. This is nothing special and observed over decades. But what the FB does is creating a false sense of friendship, and since you don't have much time (and with aging you are having it even less), instead of focusing to a few people you really like, go for a beer with them, actually bond or find another friend, it makes everyone a "phonebook" entry. At the end you finish with not having a single real friend in your live, but you rather spend a lot of time on chatting with irelevant people. Same as here but with a twist - FB gives you a false feeling that your social life is ok, while here you know that you only chat with strangers. It encorages you not to do anything to find friends, to bond, instead of helping people bond, it is actually preventing them - which is great for FB business, the more time you spend there, the more they earn. And to make it even worse, due to the FB it is becoming even harder to find frinds, as its users (not all) are off the grid for normal, real life, socializing. Actually you made me think about it: all of my real life friends are very modest in using FB or they don't use it at all. To me it looks like that what people like you are considering as a solution (FB) is actually a problem. (I was downvoted, I seriously don't understand why, it would be great if people who are doing it would rather write what is so wrong, I am seriously having issues understanding it)

amarkov 9y ago

It's the EFF's mission to ensure that everyone gets privacy, not just those who are connected enough to know which apps they should delete.

hsljekskfh 9y ago

ok, do you think we should #deletegoogle too? i hate facebook but a lot of companies do this